Day 1 of the STS-134 tweetup! We started sunny and ended with a lightning storm.

Welcome Sign at NASA Tweetup Tent

Space tweeps arrived one by one, and two by two, and more. Mascots are popular at tweetups. We have @Flat Samantha, @VenusBarbie, and we even have @Space_Spider, who will be flying to space on STS-134. Her Earth-bound spider kin came to visit us at the tweetup. We have bunnies and bears, but no rubber chickens this tweetup.

Cynthia Foust @32Teeth

We even have a few TWelebrities to sweeten the deal, as if coming to a Space Shuttle launch wasn’t sweet enough. 🙂

Note: our TWelebrities are gracious and warm. They eagerly take pictures with the tweeps. LeVar Burton rescued a lost tweetup badge, delivered it to its owner, and autographed it. Seth Green asked everyone to autograph his “It’s Hard To Tweet In A Spacesuit” poster. Clare is totally space-geeking OUT! Abe is a big sweetheart. And…Nicole, bless her heart, cleaned my iphone lens — since she noticed my Twitpics seemed blurry. You guys ROCKet!! Thanks for being a part of our tweetup community.

@SethGreen with @VenusBarbie + @DataChick

@FlatSamantha tweet

We have an amazing group of 150 tweeters from around the world. Very few knew each other until today. The chatter in the room is evidence of how quickly the NASA tweetup experience bonds us together in community.

Tent full of tweeters!

We’ve seen tweetup romances. Tweetup career changes. And perhaps, we’ll claim our first tweetup baby! Yes, today I learned that one of our tweeters may be pregnant. My lips are sealed until she gives me the thumbs up to share her good news. I promise I won’t say a word about it…outside this blog.

We had great lineup of speakers for the tweeps. And even more on Launch day!

NASA's Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati

NASA's Endeavour Flow Director Dana Hutcherson

@Astro_Clay Anderson

@SethGreen tweeting @Astro_Clay-isms

After all the speakers, we loaded onto busses for our tour of the Shuttle Landing Facility, the Vehicle Assembly Building (where we saw STS-135 Atlantis tank and Solid Rocket Boosters), and the Saturn V facility. We returned for a short break before our planned visit to Launch Pad A for the retraction of the Rotating Service Structure from Endeavour. But Mother Nature intervened in a spectacular way — preventing our trip to the pad.

NASA's Bill Ingalls' Lightning photo

But, all is well. The storm passed. We’re still on track to launch at the regularly scheduled time: Friday at 3:47:55 p.m. EDT.

BBC's @JackDearLove tweet

We start again early tomorrow morning. (And if I stay up any longer writing this post, I’ll be able to watch the royal wedding!)